San Antonio is for Grandfathers

On a Tuesday in 1918, my grandfather Roy got on a train somewhere around Akron, Ohio and headed for San Antonio, Texas.  Army.  Basic training.  World War I was raging and he was headed to Paris.  The journey to San Antonio lasted long enough that he could post a letter home along the way.

Next week Mom and I’ll head to San Antonio ourselves.  We’ll visit with cousin Daniel and go to the theater and take in the sights.

I have never been to Texas.  Not even to drive through on the way to somewhere else.  Not even to land in an airport in between two points.  It’s quite an accomplishment to have reached the age of 58 without ever having set foot on Texan soil, particularly as I’ve crossed the country numerous times, the first when a little girl to visit my Granddaddy Roy when he lived in Arizona – a long, long time after his respite in San Antonio (if basic training in the Army can be called ‘respite’).

My granddaddy was in his late 20's when he went off to war by way of San Antonio, Texas.  Older than the 20th century by only a few years, he was sent to what was then, in his describing, a virtual desert.  I don’t think he got to the Alamo, for surely he would have said.  And I don’t know if there was a river walk then.

I wonder what he would think to know that one grandson now lives where he spent that time so long ago getting ready for war – the war that would end all wars . . . or so they said, so they believed, at the time.

I don’t know how my granddaddy felt about anything.  All I know (and it’s far too little to suit) is what he said.  From what he said, one would conclude that he was a jaunty fellow indeed, eager for the chance to fly fighter planes (he never did, although he did drop bombs from the back of the plane in France – by hand – and called it a good time).

We have so little in common it seems.  But as Mom and I walk with Daniel through the byways of San Antonio, it is my granddaddy I’ll be thinking of – as he was then – young, uniformed, optimistic – jaunty.

Note to Self

736 . . . rescue . . . the P . . . instead of 441

I have absolutely no idea what this note that I must have written to myself within the last day or two means.  I have no memory of writing it though it is unmistakably my scrawl.  I have no idea what call or comment inspired it.

I don’t know about you, but I have a myriad notes to self scattered about my desk – reminders, return calls to be made, thing I hear and mean to remember, thoughts and ideas for a later time.  Usually the act of writing itself serves to enable me to remember and act.  But every now and again, there’s a loose canon – a note that gets lost amidst the detritus that evidences my work life – and I find them later, often with a groan, sometimes with a chuckle, and sometimes, like today, with a great sense of mystery – whatever does it mean?

I imagine a mystery with rescue . . . the P . . . as the only clue.  Then I wonder over the possible theological meanings (hey, it’s not much of a stretch – that is my job, afer all).  Then I either put it to the side or toss it to the trash, hoping the remembrance it was meant to inspire wasn’t too awfully important and move to the next note to self.

Note to self:  don't forget to return this week's phone calls.  Explain that my voice isn’t great just now and it’s been an exhausting month (a good one, but a tiring one) overflowing with human interaction and this introvert (yes, really) needs to recharge a bit.  And don't forget to say thank you for the birthday wishes and songs – I really do appreciate them.  Really.

Note to others:  for those chores I may have overlooked, remind me again please.  Yours may be one of those notes floating in the suspension of time that is my desk just now.

Final note to self – don’t forget to post this.